1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a radio mobile terminal provided with an additional reader of chip cards, and more particularly it relates to a radio mobile terminal provided with an additional reader of prepaid chip cards, which can be implemented both on terminals realized with the TACS (Total Access Communication System) technology, and on terminals employing the GSM (Global System for mobile communication) technology.
2. Background Art
Presently, both the TACS service of mobile telephony and the GSM telephone service do not provide prepaid chip cards, notwithstanding their wide diffusion. On the other hand, the advantages of telephonic prepaid cards are well known in public telephony, since they allow their user to continuously check the amount of the credit and expense.
GB patent 2 269 512 A (Nokia) relates to a radio telephone arrangement comprising two or more card readers for accomodating a corresponding number of memory cards, in the form of subscribers-identity modules (Sims). The telephone is adapted to use the information from one of the memory cards (to* the exclusion of the other memory cards) in accordance with a predetermined priority allocation and the prioritization may be reset automatically if a card is removed or inserted, or the user may modify the priorities, e.g. by menu selection.
First of all this kind of radio telephone does not take into account the use of a prepaid card in one of the provided card readers, and on principle it doesn't relate to a specific mobile cellular phone, but to a radio telephone plant to which two or more card readers can be added according to the necessity.
In any case the prioritization for using one of the card readers instead of another is completely foreseeable and obvious, also because no prepaid chip card is provided is GB patent 2 267 794 relates to a pre-payable mobile cellular telephone communication system. According to the invention there is provided a cellular telephone where present handsets are adapted so that a cartridge or a smart card is inserted to the handset enabling connection to the network and thus make out-going telephone calls.
In this realization the handset would still be able to receive incoming calls even if the cartridge was not inserted and even if there were no credited "airtime" available.
In any case the prepayable mobile cellular phone does not absolutely provide for the employment of a SIM card which would permit the use of the cellular phone according to a subscription contract with payment posterior to the phone call.
This use is provided neither with the card reader accommodating the prepaid chip card nor by a second supplementary port. Of course in this kind of embodiment there is not any problem of prioritization for using several telephone card readers.